Like a Weight That I've Carried Has Been Carried Away
by DrPepperDiva
Summary: Derek/Stiles kink meme fill in which Stiles does something stupidly heroic for a group of Fae passing through Beacon Hills and is offered an incredible reward. One wish, no strings attached. No faerie games, no consequences, no limits. He can even wish for someone to be brought back from the dead. Maybe even several someones.
1. Chapter 1

Oh my GOD, I have so many other things I need to be writing. Sooooooo many other things. God, seriously, I need to just stay the hell off kink memes. I just wanted to write thiiiiiiiiiiisssssss.

Any road, meh...this is taking place in an alternate season three timeline. No Alpha pack, Peter got resurrected, but appears to be playing nice with everyone, and Jackson is a werewolf. Okay? Okay.

Title is (slightly paraphrased) from 'Feels Like Today' by Rascal Flatts, if anyone is curious.

* * *

There are faeries in Beacon Hills.

Honest-to-God faeries. With the weird spelling and the magic and the unearthly, glowing beauty and the seriously motherfucking _nasty_ and highly developed sense of vengeance.

Stiles knows there are currently faeries in Beacon Hills because Allison's father had been honorable enough to give Derek a head's up that a group of rather-less-scrupulous-than-he hunters were rolling into town on the trail of a cadre of them. He knows about the weird spelling because he's been up to his eyeballs in research (most of which had been confined to a series of increasingly dusty and moldered books provided by Deaton due to the fact that actual information on faeries is even harder to come by than actual information on werewolves on the internet) for the past week trying to figure out why a group of faeries were flitting about the woods of Beacon Hills when they haven't even been seen in California for going on a hundred years. He knows about the unearthly, glowing beauty because he just spent half an hour in a clearing in the forest trying not to stare like a twelve-year-old boy at a Hooter's bar while Derek and Peter tried to talk the faerie queen (an actual, honest-to-God faerie queen!) into moving on before her group brought even more hunters pouring into Beacon Hills.

And he knows about the motherfucking _nasty_ and highly developed sense of vengeance because he is currently running for his life after having just watched a motherfucking tree lift itself out of the ground and _eat_ somebody.

Granted, that somebody was one of the rogue hunters that Argent had warned them about, and he and his buddies had just crashed the negotiations and started shooting at everyone. Stiles can't really find it in his heart to feel sorry for the bastard.

But now, the bastard's friends are out for blood, the woods have become a war zone, he's managed to get separated from the rest of his friends, and somehow, he doubts that the faerie queen and her retinue are looking very closely at which humans they are making Treebeard and his friends _fucking eat_.

Hence, the running.

He's pretty sure he's running in the general direction of his jeep. Scott had been beside him when Derek called the general retreat, but he split off about ten minutes ago to try and lead some of the hunters away from Stiles. He hasn't seen Derek or Peter since they raced away from the clearing. A sudden shout to his left pulls him up short, and he throws himself against the nearest tree, flattening himself as best he can against the trunk and praying to anyone who might be listening that _this_ tree doesn't sprout fangs and claws like the ones in the clearing had.

Struggling to quiet his ragged breathing as much as he can, he peeks around the edge of the tree. He flinches back when he catches sight of two large men—obviously part of the hunter group—tramping through the underbrush just a few yards away from him. One of them is cursing savagely, dragging something behind him while the other scans the woods back and forth, a mean-looking rifle with a scope in his hands. Stiles frowns as they draw closer and he can see a length of heavy chain in the first man's hands. He'd bet anything it's made of pure iron and as he follows the length of it back to whatever they're dragging, his gut twists unpleasantly.

Oh. _Oh._

It's a child. One of three faerie children that had been running and playing in the clearing when they had arrived to seek an audience with the queen. They had been hustled away quickly by two adults once they'd announced their presence, but Stiles recognizes this one. It's a little girl…God knows how old for real, but she doesn't look to be more than five or six. The chain is wrapped around her upper body, pulled so tight he can see it cutting into the skin of her bare arms. Everywhere it's touching her, Stiles can see angry, smoking welts rising on her moon-pale skin. Her silvery hair is coming loose from its intricate braids and even from a distance, her face is stained with tears and what looks like blood. She's terrified, crying and struggling, and babbling words Stiles can't understand in a high, clear voice.

His fists clench against the rough bark of the tree. He should keep running, try to find his jeep and rendezvous with Derek and the others—tell_them_ about the child. Even as the thought occurs to him, though, he knows he's not going to do it. There's no telling how long it will be before he can find Scott, Derek, or Peter. He dropped his phone in the initial rush of the hunters' attack, and whatever it is these two want with the little girl, Stiles knows it's nothing good. He might be the only chance she has.

What he's going to do against two armed hunters, he has no idea…but he has to try.

He ducks down a little, pressing himself even more tightly against the tree as the hunters pass a few feet away from him. The child is thrashing and struggling on the ground as her captor drags her, and it's enough to cover his clumsy footsteps as he slips from tree to tree, following. He keeps them in sight as they crash through the woods for another several minutes, eventually stopping in an area where the ground starts to slope down into a small ravine. The man dragging the little girl stops to wrap his end of the chain around the trunk of a half-grown tree several times, and Stiles breathes a little sigh of relief when the man doesn't bother to padlock it or anything. He creeps a little closer, settling against another thick tree trunk as the man stands, brushing his hands off on his pants as he moves to stand next to his companion.

"You sure this is where Jim said to meet?" he asks gruffly. The one with the rifle shrugs one shoulder.

"Close enough."

The first man runs his hand back over close-cropped, dark hair, blowing out a gusty sigh. "Jesus…I knew those fuckers could fight, but did you see what they did to Rick?"

The second man tenses, and spits on the ground as he glares at the weakly struggling child. "Magic ain't just for fairy tales—these things are vicious. Told that dumbass to watch his back."

Stiles would lay odds 'Rick' is the guy who got ripped to shreds by a pissed off oak tree. He licks his lips a little, eyes darting around for anything he can use as a weapon. A hefty tree branch, a rock, _anything_. Hell, maybe he can throw a stick somewhere off in the brush and these two will trot off to investigate. So far, all the horror movie clichés that have turned out to be real are the scary ones…surely to God, one of the _helpful_ ones has to be real sooner or later, right?

His search turns up nothing, though—none of the branches around him are thick enough to be used as a club and the only rocks he sees look too heavy to lift. Desperation starts to rise in him…he's apparently managed to stumble onto the hunters' meeting place. Which means any of them who survived the faeries could be arriving at any moment. Before he can gear himself up to do something stupid, though, fortune decides to smile on him.

There is a scream from somewhere off to their right. It sounds far-off to Stiles, but voices echo strangely in these woods. Wherever it is, it's loud and long and _human_, and the two hunters evidently recognize the voice. They share one startled glance, and then the one with the gun turns to look at the little girl. His lip curls and he curses violently.

"Jesus, come on…it's not goin' anywhere," he grunts, and takes off towards the screams. The other guy's eyes dart between the girl and his companion's retreating back a few times, before he seems to come to a decision…and runs off after him.

Stiles is moving almost before their footsteps fade into the darkness, scrambling towards the prone body of the child. He hits his knees beside her, and she startles violently, squealing in fright. She scrambles back from him as best she can, her movements hampered by the heavy chain wound around her, by the evident pain she's in from the burns inflicted by the iron. Stiles hisses as he reaches forward and starts pulling at the chain as gently as he can.

"It's okay, it's okay…I'm gonna get you out of here, all right? I'll take you back home, I promise." He has no idea if she can even understand what he's saying, but he keeps his voice low and gentle in the hopes that she can at least understand his tone. He pulls at the chain binding her until it starts to come loose from her chest and arms. The girl inhales sharply as it starts to fall away from her, her wide-set eyes flying up to fix on his face. He smiles at her reassuringly, one ear cocked for any sounds of the hunters coming back.

At last, the chain is loose enough for her to wiggle out of its loops. Stiles winces at the angry, weeping burns that are covering her arms and part of her neck. She's only wearing a sleeveless little dress made of some thin, smooth cloth. There are burns all up and down her bare arms and legs. As soon as she is free, she practically throws herself into his arms, her little hands clutching at his shoulders, her damp face pressing against the crook of his neck.

"Whoa! Whoa, hey, okay…uh…all right, let's just…yeah, let's go," he mutters, looking around somewhat helplessly. He stands awkwardly, the girl clinging like a limpet, winding her legs around his waist. He shifts her onto his hip, biting his lip as his eyes dart around the woods, trying to decide what to do.

He thinks he can still find his way back to the jeep from here…but what then? He can't go back towards the clearing where he had last seen the child's—family? Clan? Cadre? Whatever the faeries were to each other, the clearing was a no-go. There was no telling how many hunters (and, more importantly, how many _guns_) were scattered through the woods going back that way. He has no idea where Scott, Derek, and Peter are…and frankly, he's not sure how safe it would be to just go looking for any of the faeries. He has a feeling most of them are going to be in a 'magically sick trees on the humans first, ask questions later' kind of mood for a while.

Unfortunately, before he can come to a decision, it's taken out of his hands.

"Hey! You! What the fuck are you doing?!"

The girl screams again at the harsh shout, her arms growing even tighter around his neck. Stiles whirls to see one of the girl's captors coming back towards them, racing towards them with a pistol drawn and waving in the air. Stiles sucks in a breath, pulls the girl more tightly against his chest.

Then he does the only thing he can. He starts running.


	2. Chapter 2

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!" he chants under his breath as he runs, forcing his aching, burning legs to pump faster and praying that his natural clumsiness will _just this once_ not put in an appearance. The girl clutches him tightly, her face buried against his shoulder, her silvery hair flying loose from its braids and drifting up to tickle his mouth. She's whimpering faintly, the sound barely carrying over his frantic breaths, the crash of his footsteps, and the angry shouts behind them. "It's okay," he gasps, hoping with everything in him that he's not lying to her. "We'll be fine."

"Get back here, you little bastard!" The hunter's scream is accompanied by the thunder of his pistol going off, and Stiles winces as a chunk is blasted out of a tree only a few feet to his right, spraying them with splinters. He doesn't slow down, though, just tries to zigzag through the mass of brush and trees around them, presenting as much of a moving target as he can.

He suspects his life choices warrant some serious reevaluation when bullets flying at his person don't even phase him anymore.

His lungs, arms, and legs are burning with the exertion…but he supposes he can be a little grateful for the frequency with which he finds himself running for his life these days. The child's weight barely slows him down, and he's been flat-out sprinting for the past ten minutes. He even manages to dodge around the various obstacles of the forest with something approaching grace. Frantically, his mind flicks through a dozen plans, rejecting them almost as quickly as they occur to him. He has no backup, no way to contact Scott or one of the others, and no weapons. His only chance is to get far enough ahead of the hunter that he can either find a hiding place, or they run into one of his friends.

Scott has to be looking for him. Maybe Derek, as well. Hell, he'll even take Peter's help at this point.

Another shot goes off; this one so close that he feels the heat of it flash across his cheek. He shouts in surprise, flailing sideways and falling to his knees. The girl screams, and he hears a triumphant shout from _far_ closer behind them than he'd realized. He tries to roll with the fall, clutching the child close to protect her from any impact, desperate to get to his feet again. He doesn't know what the hunters want with the girl, but he knows it's nothing good…and he knows that it probably won't matter to the one chasing them that he's human.

He gains his feet, nearly falling again as he takes a first few stumbling steps. He shifts the girl awkwardly in his arms, trying to run faster, trying to put some distance between them and their pursuer. He makes it another few hundred yards before he starts to realize that they're not going to be able to shake him.

The man's angry shouts and threats are growing louder, his heavy footsteps getting closer and closer. Another bullet whizzes by his ear and he knows, moving target or no, it's only a matter of time before one of them hits him. Or the sound of the gunfire draws any of the hunters who are left. He's still too far away from the jeep; and he can't hear any of the howls of the werewolves.

He's alone.

He's all alone and he's the only chance the girl has.

"It's okay," he whispers again, and this time he _knows_ he's lying. His eyes dart around the darkened forest, searching for anything, _anything_ that he can use as a weapon, that he can use to get them out of this. He risks a glance over his shoulder and fear spikes through him at the sight. The hunter is closing on them, gaining on them with every step.

With grim determination, he forces a fresh burst of speed from his aching legs charging up a sloping incline. If he can just…if he can just get out of the hunter's sight for a few moments...if he can just get a moment to think. His feet slip and slide in the mud and loam, and the girl's arms arm winds so tight around his neck she's nearly choking him. He's gasping for breath and the hunter is gaining on them, gaining on them, _gaining_ on them.

He reaches the crest of the incline and his heart nearly stops in his chest at the sight that greets him. The hill he's standing on slopes downward to the muddy banks of a thin stream—barely more than a trickle across the ground, really. It's not the stream that interests him, though.

It's the three faeries ranged out along the other side of it. Two women and a man, one of whom he's sure he recognizes as one of the faeries that were taking care of the children.

He's heaving like a bellows, but even so his breath catches in his throat at the sight of them. They all three look like they've been through a war—their simple cloth shirts and pants ripped and bloodied. Two of them are sporting the same cruel-looking burns that the iron chain had left on the girl's skin, and they are all damn near dripping with blood. Most of it is clearly not theirs. They are heading away from him, running along the ground so quickly they will be lost to his sight within a few short moments.

He freezes for a bare instant, swallowing harshly…but then he hears the hunter's heavy footsteps crashing behind them, realizes what a _perfect_target he is presenting just standing there like an idiot.

He clutches the girl more tightly, breathes in once, and wings a prayer to the heavens that he's not about to get gutted by a pine tree for his trouble. "Hey!" he shouts, and starts down the hill. His feet nearly slide out from under him, leaves and mud proving to be treacherous ground, but he just manages to stay upright. "Guys! Over here!" he shouts again, and the girl's head finally lifts from his shoulder at the sound. He skids more than runs down the rest of the way, splashing clumsily into the cold water of the stream. "Wait!"

The faerie nearest to them turns at his shouting, glancing back over his shoulder. Immediately, he pulls up short and calls something to his two companions. The girl squirms in Stiles' arms, twisting away from his chest to look. The three adult faeries are reversing course, rushing back towards them. The girl makes a high, happy sound, reaching one hand towards them even as she keeps the other wound tight around his neck.

And that is when it all goes to Hell.

"Hey!" The deep, angry voice of the hunter thunders out from behind and above them. Stiles wrenches around, staring up the hill he's just run/slid down to find the man just coming to the top of it.

One of the faeries screams something in their own language, and the girl shrieks, cowering against his chest. Stiles has one moment of perfect clarity as he watches the hunter's eyes dart to the three adults and then back down to him and the girl. There's nothing but anger and hatred in the man's gaze, something that looks damn near _insane_. Stiles is moving even as the man is raising his gun, leveling it straight at him and the girl. He throws himself to one side, crashing to his knees on the muddy bank of the stream and huddling protectively over the child's small body. He presses her face back into his chest, trying to shield every part of her as she screams.

There is an almighty _crack_…but not the sound of a gunshot.

Instead, it is accompanied by a creaking, cracking, splintering sound. The cold, wet ground underneath him shakes and he dares to lift his head slightly, turning to look up at the top of the hill behind him. He already knows what he's going to see. He'd already seen it in the clearing when the hunters had first attacked.

There is a tree beside the hunter—a gnarled old pinoak, most of its branches bare already though it's only the beginning of October—stirring itself. Lifting itself out of the ground, its roots shivering and slithering like living things. The air around Stiles is crackling with power, an odd, electric flavor in the air that he knows is _magic_. Old magic. The kind of magic all those stories and songs he's been researching talked about. The tree lurches towards the man, branches swinging down, their bare tips sharp as claws. The speed it moves with is incredible, darting forward like a striking predator, and Stiles barely has time to close his eyes, turn and bury his face against the girl's silver hair before it's on the hunter.

There is a horrible, wet, squelching sound. A terrified, pain-filled scream that chokes off almost as soon as it's begun.

And then the three faeries are crowding around him, one of them jerking at his shoulders to get him to sit up, to uncurl himself from the girl. They practically rip her out of his arms as soon as he straightens, one of the women gathering her close and crooning something in that same trilling, musical language that Stiles can't understand. The girl goes happily, wrapping herself around the woman just as tightly as she'd been clinging to Stiles. Without a word, the woman leaps to her feet and starts running the way the three had been going when Stiles had come over the hill, carrying the child.

Stiles swallows nervously, glancing up at the other two as he tries to remember if he'd seen either of them before everything went to shit, if they have any idea that he was _not_ with the hunters that had attacked them. The male faerie is glaring down at him, a long, wickedly-curved knife that Stiles hadn't noticed before in his hand.

It's all he can look at, now.

He stares at the knife, the edge of it still bloodied and gleaming, and he knows his eyes are going wide as saucers. Before he can say anything, though, before he can try to scramble off his knees, or shout for Scott and Derek, or start pleading for his life, or any other of the half dozen options that spring to mind—the two remaining faeries just turn away from him. Casually, dismissively, utterly ignoring him as they take off after the one carrying the girl.

Stiles is left hunched on the ground, the icy mud of the stream's bank soaking into his jeans. There's a body on the hill behind him. His ears are still ringing with the hunter's bitten-off scream, with the wet crunching sounds of the enchanted tree's branches ripping him to shreds. All alone, with no idea where Scott and Derek have gotten off to, and with no way to defend himself should any surviving hunters come upon him. He gapes after the faeries' retreating backs for a moment.

"Yeah, you're welcome!" he mutters sarcastically…but only after the faeries have vanished from sight.

After all, he's not _stupid_.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello,

Many, many thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows...I am so glad people are enjoying.

* * *

He doesn't tell anyone about saving the girl.

He's not really sure _why_. Scott finally finds him about twenty minutes after his brain re-engages and reminds him that hanging around the body of the hunter (or rather, what's left of it) isn't a good idea, and he starts hoofing it back in the direction he thinks the jeep is in. It's on the tip of his tongue to tell Scott what he'd done—it was still pretty badass of him if he does say so himself, even if the faeries are actually the ones who took the guy out. Scott, however, just tosses him the phone he dropped (thankfully undamaged), and barely lets him answer an affirmative when he asks if Stiles is okay before he's babbling about needing to get in touch with Chris Argent and make sure the man knows the pack had nothing to do with inciting the faeries' aggression.

He knows Scott is more worried about upsetting Allison and possibly scoring some brownie points with her father than the actual, real-life ramifications of Argent possibly thinking that the pack had broken the uneasy truce they had…but he's right, Mr. Argent _does_ need to be informed of what went down. He lets Scott escort him back to the jeep and just waves his friend off tiredly as he digs his keys out of his pocket. He watches with exhausted detachment as Scott bounds off into the night in the direction of the Argents' house and crawls into his vehicle. The phone beeps at him as he turns the key in the ignition, alerting him to a terse text message from Derek that informs him the faeries have retreated to another part of the forest and everyone should just go home.

After that it just…doesn't come up.

He goes home, drags himself into a hot shower, and then throws himself into bed. Derek texts again the next morning to let everyone know that he and Peter have managed to track down the faerie queen again and successfully negotiate the clan's peaceful exit from their territory. They will apparently be leaving within the next couple of days, as soon as the Fae queen completes some business she has. As Derek makes no mention of it, Stiles assumes the faeries didn't tell him about his part in rescuing the girl, and so he sees no point in bringing it up himself. Any of them would have done the same, and after dealing with Derek and his puppies for almost a year, now, Stiles is pretty used to people not even acknowledging when he does something amazingly badass and heroic (if he does say so himself).

Besides, if whatever brought the faeries to Beacon Hills isn't done yet, they've got bigger things to worry about. There is the matter of the hunters who had been slaughtered on Derek's territory. Chris Argent had apparently assured Scott that any repercussions would fall on the Fae and not the pack, but Stiles isn't really willing to take that on faith. And there's the fact of the faeries' business to begin with. Stiles is not actually sure if anyone has even figured out what brought this cadre of Fae to Beacon Hills in the first place…but all his research indicates these people are about as far from Tinkerbell as one can get. He's not sure Beacon Hills being an epicenter of faerie "business" can be anything but bad.

As it turns out, the queen's business isn't with Beacon Hills.

It's with _him_.

Three days after the confrontation in the clearing, he comes home to an empty house, the same as usual. Scott is working a shift at Deaton's, none of the other wolves have called or texted him for anything, and his dad is working a double and won't be home until sometime after midnight. He drops his backpack unceremoniously by the front door and heads to the kitchen to take a package of fish out to thaw for dinner.

Baked salmon and steamed broccoli with a side of salad with no dressing. That'll teach Dad to try and order pizza for lunch on the down-low. He then makes a triple-decker turkey club with bacon for his after school snack and charges up the stairs to get started on some research he's been putting off for the past two days. He takes a large bite of his sandwich as he opens his bedroom door.

And promptly starts choking on it at the sight of the three figures just standing silently by his bed.

He splutters and wheezes, flailing backwards and slamming his shoulder painfully into the edge of the doorjamb. The plate with the sandwich on in goes flying, landing in a mess of mayonnaise, lettuce, and bacon on the carpet as he coughs, pounding ineffectually at his chest. He finally manages to dislodge the half-chewed wad of turkey, bacon, and bread in his throat, spitting the mouthful out onto the carpet with the rest of the sad remains of his snack.

The Fae queen arches one thin eyebrow, staring at the mess on the floor with a distinctly unimpressed air. Stiles swallows convulsively when she glances back up at him, pinning him with a coldly inscrutable look.

"I have business with you, boy," she says gravely, and Stiles tries very hard not to think of the steel jaws of a trap closing.

* * *

He gapes stupidly for a few moments, his heart pounding in his chest. The three faeries just watch him silently, impassively, looking at him as though he's a particularly interesting bug under a microscope. Perhaps one that they are considering squashing. Up close—and without the distracting terror of, you know, running for his life—the faeries' presence is even more awe-inspiring than they had been the night in the clearing before everything had gone to shit. Up close, he can see for the first time why the phrase 'terrible beauty' kept cropping up in the books he was researching. He'd thought it was just down to ridiculously flowery language, but no…the Fae are very beautiful to look at. And very terrible.

The queen is easily as tall as Derek, maybe even a little taller, and she's actually one of the shortest of her retinue. She and her bodyguards—two women with the same sort of wickedly curved blades that the male faerie the other night had sported—are slender and willowy, with moon-pale skin and wide set eyes that remind Stiles of the crystals his mother used to hang in the windows of the house, always shifting through a rainbow of color depending on how the light hit. They wear their smooth, silvery hair in intricate, beaded braids that click together softly with every movement. They're all three gorgeous…but there's an edge to their features. Something wild and almost feral in their expressions that sets alarms off in Stiles' mind. He doesn't even have to ask to know that these creatures are older than he knows, more powerful than anything he's seen yet, and any of them could take his head clean off his body with not even the slightest effort.

He's going to be cursed. Oh holy hell, three faerie women climbed through his bedroom window to kill him for some ridiculous, obscure offense he committed while saving the life of one of their children and he's going to be cursed. He's going spend the rest of his life as a frog, or a salamander or something. He's going to be turned into something slimy and Scott will have to keep him in a terrarium on his shelf and he'll be dead in a week anyway because Scott can't even keep _goldfish_ alive, much less frogs.

He yet again finds himself wondering whether he would live longer if he started begging for his life or just took off running now, when there is a soft sound from behind one of the bodyguards. The little girl he had saved steps out into his view—looking much better than she had when he last saw her. The nasty burns that had scored her skin are completely gone, and she is smiling up at him sweetly. With a happy little squeal, she darts around her guardian and races across his room, throwing herself at him and wrapping her small arms around his waist. Her chin pokes into his stomach as she tilts her head up to smile at him toothily, her expression _far_ warmer than anything the adults are wearing.

He freezes for a moment, unsure as to what he should do. When his eyes fly to the queen's face, though, she just tilts her head, something slightly quizzical in her eyes now. He hesitates a moment more, and then just mentally throws up his hands.

Seriously, his _life_.

He goes with his instincts and gently curls one arm around the girl's shoulders. "Hey, you're looking better," he says awkwardly, patting her on the back. This time, when he looks up at the queen, he thinks he sees a twitch of her lips that might be amusement.

Hey, dealing with Derek Hale on a semi-regular basis, he's gotten used to interpreting every subtle nuance of expression.

The girl—he still doesn't even know her name, he realizes suddenly—squeezes him around the middle and then takes a step back, beckoning him closer with one hand. Bemused, he leans down obligingly, until they're at eye level. The girl takes a breath, a look of fierce concentration settling on her face.

"Than-kyoo for help-ing me," she intones gravely, clearly reciting unfamiliar words. "You were ver-ry braff," she finishes proudly, and darts in to kiss him on the cheek. Stiles can't help a pleased grin as the girl dances backwards to lean against the legs of one of the bodyguards.

"You're welcome," he says seriously, and the knot of nervousness in his chest starts to unwind.

Only to come back in full, raging force when the Fae queen makes a sharp gesture at the other two. "Leave us," she snaps, like something out of an episode of _Game of Thrones_. The two bodyguards dip their heads in a sort of half-bow, shooting him identical, inscrutable glances as one of them lifts the girl onto her hip.

He's irrationally let down when the faeries simply move past him out the bedroom door and into the hall, stepping over the mess of his sandwich gracefully. He was honestly expecting a showy magical exit…or even for them to leap out of his bedroom window the way Scott and Derek sometimes still do. After all, not even a week ago he was watching _trees_ stir themselves to tear people into bloody shreds at the faeries' command. Leaving through someone's front door seems so…normal.

He's not sure, but he thinks he hears one of them sniff disdainfully as they pass him.

The girl waves at him brightly over her guardian's shoulder as they make their way down the stairs, and Stiles makes himself wave back before finally turning away, full of trepidation. The Fae queen is staring at him, unblinkingly, still just standing by his unmade bed. There's dirty boxers on the floor by her foot for God's sake, and there is a faerie queen standing in his room.

"Uh…so," he says intelligently, licking his lips and edging slightly further into his room. "What…uh…what can I do for you? Your highness, er…your majest—ma'am?" He trails off helplessly, internally wincing.

And to think, three days ago he was freaking out over the possibility of _Derek_ being the one to say something stupid and offensive and get them all cursed.

The queen is still staring at him with cool eyes that are a deep, indigo-blue in the light from his desk lamp. After a few interminable moments, she tilts her head to one side.

"Aine is my daughter," she says. Her voice is soft, lilting, musical even, but something about the tone puts Stiles in mind of blades wrapped in velvet, or a sweet drink hiding poison. Dangerous. This woman is so, so dangerous.

His brow furrows. "Aine?" he repeats, before his confusion abruptly clears. "Oh, is that her name?" Holy shit, that kid was an actual faerie princess?

"One of them." The queen waves a dismissive hand. "She says you saved her life—at great risk to your own. That you could have left her to the one chasing you and saved yourself, but you never once faltered." The queen's eyes narrow slightly, and Stiles feels a chill go up his spine. "The_hunters_" she spits the word like a curse, "killed two of our clan to get at Aine and her brothers. What they wanted with our children does not bear thinking on. Name your price."

Despite himself, Stiles sputters. "My…my _what_? Whoa, whoa, no, who said anything about a price?"

If anything, the queen's expression gets colder. "I am not blind to the ways of you humans, and you knew enough of our customs to keep your Alpha from making an idiot of himself and inviting our wrath. My clan will hold no debt to a human, boy, now what is your price?"

"Hey, I didn't do it because I thought you'd _pay_ me, I did it because she's a little kid and those assholes were hurting her!" Stiles shouts before his brain can engage any kind of filter. As soon as the words are out he wants to clap his hands over his mouth and call them back.

Oh God forget being a frog. He's going to die.

Incredibly, though, the Fae queen seems to relax. The coldness melts out of her expression, the harsh edges seeping away from her bearing, and she smiles at him beatifically. "Then my daughter spoke truly of you," she says.

Stiles holds a very serious internal conversation with his knees, trying to decide if they're going to buckle or not. What?

"Aine likes you," the queen continues smoothly. "For the past three days she has spoken of nothing but you—her brave human."

Slowly, it begins to dawn on Stiles that he is probably not going to be turned into some kind of invertebrate. That the faeries may have actually invaded his house just to thank him for saving the girl's life. He's honestly not sure if he wants to break into relieved laughter, or just put his head down between his legs and vomit. Instead, he takes a shaky breath and ducks his head in an approximation of the bow he'd seen the two bodyguards sketch.

"I'm flattered," he says…and he actually means it. The queen tilts her head again and takes a step forward.

"We owe you a great debt. _I_ owe you a debt…as both her queen and her mother. We promised your Alpha we would leave his territory tonight, but first there is the matter of your reward."

Stiles' brain stutters to a halt at someone calling Derek "his" anything, and he almost misses the second part of the sentence. He feels his eyes going wide when it registers, though, and his internal alarms immediately scale back up to Defcon 1. "Oh, oh, no, I couldn't. Really, I would have done the same for anyone—I'm just happy your daughter's okay. That's enough for me, honest," he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a stream of steadily increasing velocity.

No. No, no, no, and no. He's read about the Fae and their "rewards," knows more about the various ways that faerie magic and artifacts can _dick someone over_ than he ever thought he would ever need to know, and he's not touching that with a ten foot pole. Even if this particular faerie doesn't seem all that threatening anymore, and her daughter apparently thinks Stiles is the best thing since sliced bread.

"Your modesty does you credit, but you are owed a life-debt by my clan. This cannot go unanswered," the queen replies calmly, and he mentally flails about for some polite way he can refuse.

Finally, though, he admits defeat. "I just…honestly, I'm flattered. You seriously have no idea how flattered. And please, please, _please_ understand that I mean absolutely no disrespect here—like seriously, I mean the exact opposite of disrespect—but…well…"

One of the queen's elegant eyebrows lifts in clear inquiry.

"Favors from your people don't tend to work out so well for mine, your majesty. Your highness. Ma'am." He hunches his shoulders, his eyes screwing shut of their own accord as he braces himself for her anger.

Seriously. Warts. Slime. Terrarium in Scott's room. It's going to suck so bad.

She surprises him again, though, by laughing softly. Hesitantly, he squints one eye open, and then the other. She is watching him with definite good humor this time, her eyes sparkling and lips quirked into what he almost might call a fond smile.

"Favors, yes. Petty demands and foolish attempts to trick us and steal our power, yes. Those rarely end well for humans. You, however, I am offering a reward. A gift."

Stiles takes a deep breath, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. He's intrigued, despite himself. "What…what kind of gift?" he asks carefully.

The queen steps closer to him, her gaze turning somehow more intense and more distant at the same time. For a moment, he gets the disconcerting impression that she is looking _into_ him rather than at him, and a strange heaviness fills his chest.

"Shadow-child," she sighs softly. "One foot in the mortal world and one foot in ours, walking in both and belonging to neither." He swallows heavily, his heart pounding in his ears. "Capable of such terrible cruelty and such immeasurable devotion. So foolishly brave and so helplessly frightened." Abruptly, he takes a breath and Stiles reels back a little, feeling as though he's been slapped in the face by some invisible force. For a moment, the air in his room seems to crackle, and he can feel magic sparking against his skin, taste it on the back of his tongue.

The queen lifts her chin a little, staring down at him intently, but not unkindly. "You've lost much in your life," she says thoughtfully. "And the path you've set yourself on costs you more every day."

He doesn't…he doesn't know what to say to that. Doesn't want to look too closely at how true the words feel. He feels stripped bare, hallowed out somehow, as though she has just reached inside of him and scraped down to his core. He's still panting softly, his throat burning and his eyes stinging.

"I owe you my daughter's life—a debt a mother can never truly repay. My gift to you is this, child," she says, and suddenly she is standing directly in front of him, even closer than before. He barely has time to gasp. Quick as a striking snake—but gentle as the brush of a feather—she gathers one of his hands in both of hers. He can only stare as she closes her eyes and folds his fingers over into a fist. There is a flash of soft heat, warm like sunshine, in the very center of his palm. When she lets go of his hand, he opens it to find a gleaming silver mark emblazoned on his skin. The symbol is incomprehensible to him, all swirling lines and graceful curves that spread across his entire palm. Even as he watches, the symbol glows faintly before seeming to sink into his skin and fade away entirely.

"A wish," the queen breathes. "One wish, that comes to you with no bargain, no limit, no consequence. I swear on my blood that no harm can come to anyone as a result. For my daughter's life, for what I would have lost but for you, this is my gift."

Stiles stares at his hand, before his eyes fly up to the queen's face. His mouth works soundlessly for a moment, and the queen smiles at him again. Then, like her daughter, she leans in and presses a soft kiss to his cheek. "You have three days to decide, child, and then the magic will be done. My thanks to you, always. Always and always."

Then, before he can recover from his shock, before he can think of anything to say, she is gone. No flashy explosion of light or sound. She doesn't leave out the door the way the other two did. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, she is simply _gone_.

And Stiles is left to look down again at the still-tingling skin of his palm, and apparently three days to decide what he wants before he is granted an honest-to-God wish.

A real-live faerie queen is going to grant him a _wish_.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters softly, glancing wildly around the room. "Freakin' werewolves don't even give me _gas money_!"


	4. Chapter 4

For a few seconds after the Fae queen vanishes, Stiles can only stand in amazement, staring at his palm. He tilts it this way and that, still feeling the lingering warmth of whatever the queen had done to mark him. If he squints and holds his hand to the light just right, he can still see the dim outline of the mark. Faint streaks of silver that curl and loop over his skin, glittering like a hologram. Holy shit.

Holy _shit_.

His body jerks all of its own accord, flailing around until he nearly stumbles into his own desk chair. He clutches the back of it, mouth working soundlessly as he struggles to take a deep, calming breath. Okay. Okay. He can handle this. He flexes his hands for a moment, before lowering himself to his knees on the floor. Mechanically, he scrapes up the remains of his sandwich, piling the mess on the (luckily unbroken) plate and grimacing at the globs of mayonnaise that coat his fingers. He makes himself take the whole mess downstairs and throw it in the garbage, then grab the carpet cleaner and a dishrag from under the sink and scrub up the rest of the mayonnaise before it can stain.

The whole time, he tells himself repeatedly that he needs to keep a cool head; that he absolutely cannot freak out and rush into anything. Not with faerie magic. He forces himself to be calm and deliberate, forces himself not to immediately jump on the phone with Scott. He needs to get his information straight first, and he needs to do it in a calm and thorough manner.

Hell, these days it's kind of a tossup as to whether or not Scott will even answer his phone anyway.

Once the mess is cleaned up, he slowly he lowers himself into his desk chair, reaching with one hand for the stacks of books that he's yet to return to Deaton. He can't…he can't lose his head over this. He wasn't kidding when he said 'gifts' from the Fae tended to end badly for mere mortals. Even though something tells him the queen was being completely serious when she promised him that no harm could come from his wish, some of the consequences of trusting the Fae he's read about—yeah, he's not really willing to risk that. So, he pulls the books to him, boots up his laptop (the internet had turned out to be pretty useless as far as real information about faeries, but there were a few decent sites), and forces himself to look at this calmly.

First things first. He has to figure out what the exact parameters of the magic are. He has to figure out if it's really a _wish_ he gets to make. Even if she had said 'no limit,' surely there are rules…that was the first thing that had been drilled into his head when he'd stepped into this world of werewolves and creatures and now honest-to-God magic. There are always rules. He needs to find out what the rules are before he even lets himself think of…

Think of what he might ask for.

His mind shies away from that thought, from anything he might be able to wish for. He won't even consider it, won't allow himself to even think in those terms, won't allow himself to think of this as real. Not until he knows exactly what he's getting into, exactly what the Fae queen did.

He breathes again, the fluttering in his stomach calming at the formation of a solid plan. One thing at a time. He will find out what the symbol means, what the regulations of a faerie wish are. He will figure out the rules. Nothing else matters until those goals are accomplished. He throws himself headlong into the familiar rhythms of research, cross-referencing and checking and plucking at the threads of stories and legends until the few seams of actual truth become visible. The time slips away from him, hours bleeding and blending together until his phone beeping with a text alert startles him out of the single-minded focus he only ever really manages to achieve when he's looking into something supernatural.

He blinks hazily for a moment, gradually becoming aware that his room is now lit only by the glow of his laptop screen and the desk lamp, and that his neck and back are aching fiercely. His stomach growls as he swipes his thumb across the phone's screen, reminding him that he hasn't actually had anything to eat since lunch at school and even that had just been an apple and a couple of bags of chips.

The school's fish tacos had betrayed him once too often, thank you very much.

The message scrolls up, and he sighs softly. Looks as though his father will be working yet another double shift tonight. Just as well, as he'd completely forgotten to put the fish in the oven, but he just knows Dad's going to take the opportunity to grab contraband at the diner around the corner from the station. They still haven't been able to replace everyone they…everyone they lost down at the station the night of Matt's rampage. The few remaining deputies have all been pulling ridiculous hours as they scramble to fill the slots, and it'll probably be another month or two before they're at full capacity again. Dad refuses to ask his deputies to do more work than he does, and the result is…

Well, there's several families in Beacon Hills with basically absentee parents right now.

There's several more, though, whose parents will never come home again, so Stiles doesn't complain that his already limited time with his father has dwindled these days. All things being equal, it's probably the fact that they hardly see each other these days that has kept their relationship from completely splintering under the weight of all the werewolf-related secrets he's been keeping for the past year. He rubs the back of his neck, puffing out his cheeks with a forceful huff of air, and sinks back against the chair.

There's nothing in the books so far that can tell him exactly what the Fae queen had gifted him with—what kind of wish he might be able to make, what the consequences might be, and if her simply promising him that there _would_ be no harmful consequences holds water. He's inclined to think so—she'd said something about swearing on her blood. He's not managed to cram _all_ the nuances of faerie culture into his head in the couple of weeks he's been researching them, but he's pretty sure that a blood oath is a Big Deal. Capital letters and everything. He's not about to risk a Monkey's Paw scenario on an inclination, though.

His stomach growls again and he rolls his eyes, heaving himself to his feet. Might as well go downstairs and make something for dinner. He thinks briefly of the salmon still sitting in the sink, but decides he's much more interested in the Hot Pockets crammed in the back of the freezer. There should still be a Philly Cheesesteak one left, if his dad hasn't been nosing through his hiding places again. As he turns to head for the door, his elbow knocks into the stack of Deaton's books, toppling the one next on his list to look through down onto the floor. The book hits the carpet with a muffled thud, falling open, a few of the pages threatening to tear from the ancient-looking binding.

"Damn it," he mutters, stooping down to pick it up. He freezes in a crouch, eyes zeroing in on a corner of thick paper that is poking out of the tome, the page its on nearly torn clean out of the book. There's an illustration on it, drawn in ink that has gone rust-red with age and faded so much that the thinner lines of the drawing are nearly invisible. The swooping, curving lines of the illustration are familiar, though, and as he snatches the book up and flips it open to that page, his eyes widen.

It's the mark the queen had put on his hand. Exactly. He plops back down into his chair with a triumphant whoop, all thoughts of Hot Pockets flying straight out of his head. The page with the drawing is filled with cramped, spidery handwriting, so faded with age he has to squint to read it. The notes are copious, though, and highly, highly informative. Despite his determination to look at this coolly and logically, his heart starts to pound as he reads. This is what he was looking for, all of his questions answered right here on the page—and by a source that's probably as reputable as it's going to get. A grin starts playing at the corners of his mouth, his excitement growing the further he reads. God, wait 'til Scott hears about this…his friend is going to _flip_. Eagerly, Stiles flicks to the next page, skimming through a slim few accounts of actual people who had done some service for the Fae, and been rewarded with the same token that now marks his palm…how the magic had worked for them, what they had chosen as their rewards. He gets to the end of the page—

And he swears he feels his heart stop in his chest.

* * *

It's nearing ten 'o clock when he brings the jeep to a near-screeching halt outside of Deaton's office. There are no other vehicles in the parking lot, unsurprisingly—the place has been closed for hours. Deaton's own car is nowhere to be seen, but there's a light on in the back office window and he can see a shadow moving across the glass. He's not really surprised…Deaton always seems to be at the office, most especially when they need him.

Stiles most definitely needs him right now.

Nonetheless, he takes a moment to just breathe in the quiet of the cab, listening to the soft ticking of metal just starting to cool under the jeep's hood, to the faint whistle of wind he can hear outside the windows. He takes a moment to try and calm the racing of his heartbeat. He knows he should have called ahead—he should have at least texted Scott, and possibly Derek to have them meet him here. This is important. This is potentially so, so important, and they should know.

He can't, though. He can't bring himself to tell anyone what he's discovered out loud, can barely bring himself to think it. He can't say anything yet. Not until he gets what he thinks he's found out confirmed. He blows out a deep, gusty breath, his hands tightening on the steering wheel until his knuckles go white. Then he swallows heavily, forces his fingers to relax, and snatches the book he's been poring over feverishly for the past hour up off the passenger seat.

His mouth feels dry as a bone, his heart pounding in his ears as he throws himself out of the jeep and practically runs to the front door. He needs to know, _oh God_, he needs to know if he is reading the book correctly, if it means what he thinks it does. He feels jittery, electrified, as though he's going to rattle right out of his skin if he doesn't find out right **the hell** now if he's right.

There is a thought building in his mind, poking quietly at the corners of his consciousness. It's been there since he read the last page of the entry on the Fae mark in Deaton's book, growing and growing, and he's _frantically_ trying to beat it back, to not even let it fully form because if he's wrong. Oh God, if he's _wrong_…

He can't think it. He can't think that he might actually…that he could have…he _can't_ think it and turn out to be wrong.

He pounds on the vet office's door, knocking so hard the side of his fist aches. Almost immediately, more lights in the office start going on and he shifts nervously from foot to foot, clutching the book to his chest. The light over the office door comes on, and he can see the blurred shape of Deaton's body through the frosted glass of the door. He bites his lip as he hears the locks on the door undoing, and damn near bowls Deaton over as soon as the door starts to swing open.

"Stiles? What's—" Deaton looks as surprised as Stiles has ever seen him (which still isn't very surprised at all) as he steps back, letting Stiles all but explode into the office.

"Is this legit?" he demands, whirling on Deaton and thrusting the book at him. He's well aware that he sounds half-crazed, desperate, but he can't help it. "This book! Is everything in it real?"

He needs to know if he can really have…if he can really wish for…

Deaton glances down at the book, raising an inscrutable eyebrow. "Can I assume by the lack of howling werewolves and or blood and weapons that this is a personal question?" he asks mildly, taking the book from Stiles' hands and cradling it in one arm. Stiles wants to scream. He rakes his hands back over his buzzed hair, scrubbing roughly at his scalp.

"Dude! Seriously…_please_…are the things that book says true?"

Deaton's brow furrows, the mild—and in Stiles' opinion, a touch condescending at times—interest fades from his face to be replaced by real concern. "Did something happen? Derek said the Fae clan had promised to move on tonight."

"Yes. I mean no, nothing's wrong, they left. I think they left, I mean—" His words start pouring out faster, and he knows, he _knows_ he needs to calm himself down before he starts flying apart.

But he needs to know…he needs to know if he can really have…if there's a chance he can have his—

"Stiles!" Deaton interrupts firmly. "Sit down and tell me what's going on. What part of this book do you need to know about?"

He doesn't sit down, though. He just grabs the book back, and flips it open to the page he'd marked with a piece of folded up notebook paper. He feels like he can barely breathe as he hands the tome back to Deaton, tapping his finger once on the illustration of the Fae queen's mark. "This," he says softly. "The things it says about this—are they true?"

Deaton glances down at the page, and goes still. His eyes widen before they snap to Stiles' face with laser-like intensity. "Why are you asking?"

Stiles darts a look down at his shoes, and consciously forces the tense set of his shoulders to relax. He presses his lips together and holds his hand out, palm up. He tilts his hand slightly until the telltale shimmer flashes under the office's fluorescent lights, the lines of the queen's symbol flaring to brief visibility. Deaton's hand snakes out and takes his wrist in a gentle grip, turning it under the lights again and again.

"What did you do?" the man asks, and there is something that sounds almost awestruck in his voice. He listens intently as Stiles relates the story of how he'd come to save the little girl—Aine—and the encounter with the faerie queen in his room. When Stiles finishes, he shakes his head a little, one side of his mouth twitching upwards slightly. The look he shoots Stiles is almost—proud.

"Only you, Stiles," Deaton murmurs, closing the book and tucking it under one arm. He moves towards the back of the building, into the examination rooms, and Stiles follows silently, at a loss. "What is it you want to know?" he calls over his shoulder as he walks.

Stiles inhales sharply. "I…I just…was she serious? Do I really get a _wish_?" he asks. He tries to keep his voice steady, but there is a slight tremor in the words. He follows Deaton back to his own private office, watches as the man slides the book back onto a tall shelf of similarly aged and brittle-looking tomes. When he turns back around, he pins Stiles with an intense—but not unkind—stare.

"Dealing with the Fae is dangerous, Stiles. It's old magic…real magic, and it hardly ever turns out well for humans getting involved in it." He holds Stiles' gaze for a long beat, but before Stiles even has time to start processing disappointment, he sighs, swiping a hand back across his bald head. "That mark, though? It's rare. The last confirmed instance of a Fae granting a token like that was nearly three hundred years ago. And it's exactly what the queen said it is."

Stiles freezes, a cold, electric chill sweeping through him. Deaton shakes his head slowly. "Never actually thought I'd see something like it in my lifetime, to be honest. You really do get to make a wish, Stiles."

There is a roaring in his ears, and all he can think of is the faded words on the page in Deaton's book. The last known account of someone receiving a gift from the Fae like his. What the woman who'd earned it had done to receive it. What she'd asked for as her reward.

"And—" He pauses, swallows hard. "It can't hurt anyone?" His voice is small, brittle to even his own ears. Deaton's face relaxes further, and he smiles kindly.

"It's not a game like they usually play. This is meant to be a reward…you need to think carefully when you choose, but no, if this faerie swore a blood oath to you that no one could get hurt because of your wish, then there's no danger." He hesitates a moment, leaning one hip back against the desk in his office. "But you still have to be careful. Think very, very hard about what you want, and I'd like it if you'd come and discuss it with me before the three days are up. The Fae have different definitions of what constitutes 'harm.' There are still going to be checks and balances."

Stiles nods numbly, feeling hollowed out and breathless. He can't believe this. He can't believe it's actually true. "What if—what if I want to ask for something like one of those journals mentioned? Are those kinds of wishes safe?"

Deaton's look turns soft and knowing. "They should be," he says gently. "As long as you're very specific when you lay out your thoughts. Have you told the others about this?"

"No. No, I didn't want…I wanted to be sure it was _real_, first."

Deaton nods thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest. After a moment, he lifts his chin slightly. "Don't."

Stiles looks up sharply. "Huh? Why not?"

"This was meant to be a reward for you, for risking your life for that child. Whatever you ask for, it has to be be something _you_ decide…don't let anyone else influence your decision."

Stiles bites his lip, hating the thought of keeping something this big from Scott. But…it does make a certain kind of sense. He needs to think about this, and he needs to do it without anyone else putting their input in. At least at first. He can always tell Scott later. Deaton watches him with narrowed eyes for a few heartbeats, before nodding slightly.

"All right, then. It's getting late, and I'm not as young as I used to be. Go home and get some sleep, Stiles. If you have any questions, you can call me at any time." The words are kind, and sincere, but clearly a dismissal and Stiles takes it as such.

"Yeah…yeah, I will. And thanks." Stiles lets Deaton shepherd him out of the office, walks back to the jeep in a daze. The hand with the queen's mark on it is clenched into a fist, so tight he can feel the throb of his pulse in the center of his palm.

It's real. It's really real, and in three days—more like two, now—he's going to be able to ask for anything he wants. His mind races as he mechanically fishes his keys out of his pocket and slides into the driver's side of the jeep. The jumpy, nervous energy is still rocketing through his system, buzzing through his skull and swooping in his stomach. He doesn't start the car as soon as he fastens his seatbelt, instead leaning forward until his forehead is resting against the top of his steering wheel. He can still see the rusty, faded handwriting in the journal he'd just returned to Deaton, can see the words as clearly as though they'd been painted on the backs of his eyelids.

_Upon rend'ring a service to the Fair Folke in this past winter, the year of Our Lord seventeen hundred and twenty-eight, was granted upone one mistress Catherine Upton the gift of her heart's desyre. Thereupon, she didst wish for the return of her lover, here these five years dead and buried. By all 'counts, wast the lady's wish granted, and the young man restored to life and health…_

And he needs to consider. He needs to look at all the angles, and to truly think about what he can ask for. He needs to look at this logically.

But the words are dancing in his head. Deaton's calm assurance that the wishes accounted for in the book had all turned out fine for everyone involved is dancing in his head.

And deep in his heart, a ragged, gaping wound that time has managed to scab over—but never close—pulses. The thought that has been trying to form since the moment he'd seen the illustration of the Fae mark in the book pushes its way to the forefront of his mind, gleaming and glittering like a diamond, and he can't help it. Can't help the single idea that crystallizes in his head and his heart and his soul.

_**Mom**_.


End file.
